In this blog post, we'll show you how to decorate cupcakes with 5 different (but complimentary designs) for Mother's Day, with tutorials ranging from beginner to intermediate. So let's get started and make this Mother's Day extra special for your mom!  We have chosen colours that go together so that you can make a collection of cupcakes that will make a cohesive design but feel free to incorporate your Mom's favourite colours!

Double Petal Floral Cupcake

This striking cupcake features a double row of purple petals with delicately detailed white and green center. 

Supplies:

• Buttercream Icing Recipe
• #124 petal tip
• #133/233 grass tip
• #17 open star

Colours:

• Regal purple 
• Moss Green
• Bright white

Steps:

1. divide your buttercream Icing in to 3 portions (1 big and 2 little). Colour. Add your colour a few drops at time and then mix ( the colour will darken as it sits) the largest amount purple and 2 smaller amounts green and bright white. 
2. With a piping bag filled with regal purple (or the colour of your choice) and tipped with the #124 petal tip start at the edge of the cupcake. Squeeze and draw toward the center and lift. Repeat around the outer edge of the cupcake. Don't worry about making the petals exactly identical - a bit of variation gives a much more realistic effect.    
3. Pipe the inner circle of petals with same squeeze and pull towards the center motion leaving room so you can the add the stamens and center details. 
4. Switch to a piping bag filled with moss green and using piping tip # 133/233 position the tip in the center squeeze slightly and pull up repeat till you fill a circular area about the size of a quarter. 
5. Switch to a piping bag filled with white and using an open star tip pipe stars around the green center of the flower.

Easy Two Coloured Rosette Cupcake with Butterflies

Using two separte colours in the piping bag that mix to form a varigated flower make this super easy cupcake design a show stopper. 

Supplies:

• Tip 1M open star
• Gumpaste
• Mini butterfly plunger cutters

Colours:

• Bright White
• Deep Pink
• Regal Purple

Steps:

1. Colour some gumpaste with regal purple (probably 2 to 3 drops but colour to your liking). Knead the gumpaste till the colour is distributed. Then roll out to 1/4 depth and use the butterfly plunger cutters to cut out the your mini butterflies. Tip: If you want the butterlies to have raised wings then make a trench in tin foil and position the butterlies in the trench so the tin foil holds up the wings while they dry.
2. Divide your buttercream icing into 2 portions and colour one with Deep Pink and the other Bright White. Lay out some saran wrap and spoon a think log of each colour on the saran wrap and then roll itup. Cut the end of the rolled up saran wrap slightly above where the icing starts and put that in a piping back with a 1m Open Star Tip. Squeeze out a few swirls to make sure you are getting both colours to test.  For more info on using mulitple colours of icing in a piping back visit our How to Pipe a Rainbow Cupcake blog post. 
3. Start in the center of the cupcake  squeeze out some icing and with a constant pressure make a large rosette that covers the entire surface of the cupcake.As you get to the end of the rosette stop squeezing and give the piping back a little flick to break the icing and finish off the rosette.
4. Finish the decoration with your gumpaste butterflies!

Easy Bouquet of Roses Cupcakes

This easy design gives the impression of a bouquet of roses and is a great for beginner decorators. 

Supplies:

• Buttercream Icing Recipe
• 1M Open Star Tip
• #349 Leaf Tip

Colours:

• Deep Pink
• Fuschia
• Moss Green
• Bright White

Steps:

1. If you are going to make up a dozen of these you will need about 3 cups of icing. Mix up buttercream icing and divide into 4 containers. Colour one fuschia, one deep pink, one bright white and make a smaller amount moss green. 
2. With a piping bag filled with your first colour and tipped with the #1M Open Star Tip start at the center of where you want to place the first rosette and pipe in a circle  keeping a constent flow till the end when you stop squeezing give a bit of a flick to finish the rosette. You want the each rosette to cover approximately a 1/3 of the top of the cupcake. Repeat for the remaining cupcakes. 
3. Pipe 2nd rosette with your second colour make sure to overlap the first cupcake slightly. Repeat for the remaining cupcakes.
4. Piper 3rd rosette centered in the remaining space but overlap the other rosettes slightly. 
5. With a piping bag containing moss green and tipped with the leaf tip draw out out your leaves using a slight up and down motion to give the leaves a bit of texture. You will use more pressure at the base of the leaf and less towards the tip. Use the leaves to fill any empty spaces between the rosettes. 

Cupcakes with Happy Mother's Day Greeting

These elegant cupcakes use an outboss stamp to add a Happy Mother's Day message and are surprisingly easy to put together.

Supplies:

• Buttercream Icing Recipe
• Tip # 857 commercial closed star
• Outboss Mother's Day Stencil (Trendy Font) (shown) or 
  Outboss Happy Mothers Day (Elegant Script Font) Stencil
• Round Cookie Cutter (3")
• Gumpaste
• Purple Edible Marker
• Mini-butterfly Plungers
• Regal Purple Food Colour

Steps:

1. Roll out gumpaste to 1/4" thick. Tip: Dust your work surface with a little bit of icing sugar to prevent the gumpaste sticking to it. 
2. Dust top of gumpaste with a little icing sugar and dust the outboss stencil as well and then stamp your message onto the gumpaste.
3. Use the circle cookie to cut out the circle shape around the wording, then transfer the gumpaste cirlce to a parchment paper covered cookie sheet and leave to dry for at least an hour. 
4. Colour some gumpaste with regal purple (probably 2 to 3 drops but colour to your liking). Knead the gumpaste till the colour is distributed. Then roll out to 1/4 depth and use the butterfly plunger cutters to cut out the your mini butterflies. Tip: If you want the butterlies to have raised wings then make a trench in tin foil and position the butterlies in the trench so the tin foil holds up the wings while they dry.
5. Pipe a large buttercream rosette in the center of your cupcake (this is the glue that holds the gumpaste topper on) and place cutout gumpaste circle on top. 
6. Glue the butterlies on with a tiny bit of buttercream or if you want your butterflies to stick with no visible icing consider using edible glue. 

Floral Bouquet Cupcakes with Tiny Flowers 

This cupcake tutorial is a bit more advanced but totally worth the effort to get this glorious bouquet of blossoms.  

Supplies:

• Buttercream Icing Recipe
• Tip #101 (Petal Tip)
• Tip #807 (Commercial  Round Tip)
• Tip #349 (Leaf Tip)
• Flower Nail

Colours:

• Bright white
• Electric Yellow
• Moss Green

Steps: 

Make the Flowers:

You have 2 options for the flowers - you can either make them out of buttercream and then put them in the freezer to harden so you can handle them or you can make the flowers out of royal icing and let them dry for an hour before placing them on the cupcake. Otherwise the process is the same reguardless of the icing type you use.  

1. Start by adding a square of parchment or wax paper to your flower nail with a little bit of icing.  
2. Then with a piping bag filled with bright white icing and using the petal tip #101 pipe the petals.  To pipe a petal make sure you are holding the piping bag so the smallest end of the tip faces down then start in the center of the flower nail and start squeezing out a bit of icing so it sticks to the center. Then continue pressue while slowly dragging the tip in a small cricle returning to the center of the nail and pul up and stop squeezing to complete the petal. Start the next petal in the center and slightly overlap the previous petal and the repeat for the remaining petals. 
3. With a piping bag filled with Electric Yellow and tipped with a commercial round tip make the stamens by squeezing out a bit of icing and pulling up. Make a cluster in the center of the flower. 
4. Lift the parchment paper off the flower nail and either put aside to dry or, for buttercream, put in the freezer to harden.

Decorating the Cupcake:

1. Using white buttercream icing make a mount of icing on the top of the cupcake (we need something to stick the flowers into). 
2. Then take your hardened flowers and place them into the icing all over the cupcake.
3. With a piping bag filled with moss green icing and the #349 leaf tip pipe leaves in any gaps between the flowers. To pipe a leaf, the motion it to squeeze, decrease pressure slightly and pull up to go from the broad base of the leaf to the pointy tip. 

Check out this fun Easter Basket Cake our resident cake decorator, Jayden, made. This is an relatively easy project and that someone with a bit of piping experience could undertake.

The  basketweave piping tip (1D)was made for projects like this, literally. What the video below to see how Jayden puts it together. She says the hardest part in doing this cake is getting the spacing even. 

For the purposes of this demo we are going to assume that you have already baked your cake, trimmed to level the tiers and stacked and ice and crumb-coated so the basketweave decoration has something to stick to. 

Start by laying in the long vertical strip up the side of the cake (and slightly above - you don't want a gap to show at the top). Then do short horizontal cross strips with about 1 tip width of space in between. The horizontal strips will over lap about 1/2 the width of the tip. And the top horizontal strip will actually be partially above the cake. Pipe your second vertical strip and then pipe in the horizontal strips in the gaps from the first. Rinse and repeat. 

In the second video you will see Jayden using the 6B Open / French Star Tip to pipe the edge at the top of the cake. The cake is finished off with some fun sprinkles and some Easter chocolates.  

How to Make Carrot Top Cupcakes

Step 1: Make the Greenery

The tops of the carrots are made by free-hand cutting "leafy" shapes out of fondant using our PenBlade #10 and then letting the shapes dry for about 12 hours so they become hardened enough to stand up on their own. Once you cut the shapes out place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet or cake board. Let "air" dry for about 6 hours and then gently flip them over to dry the back side of the carrot tops. Place on the cupcakes once they are decorated. **If you are making the carrot tops ahead of time place in a card board box layered between parchment. Don't place them in a sealed container or the humidity will cause them to soften and unable to stand up**

Step 2: Pipe the Dirt 

Using Chocolate Brown icing, pipe a big swirl on top of the cupcake ( one and a half times around ) with Commercial Open Round Tip 809 keeping the center open for the "carrot" to be piped in. Then gently roll the icing on the cupcake in some brown crystal sugar to make the top look like dirt and add texture.

Step 3: Pipe the Carrot

Using orange buttercream icing (colored with Americolor Electric Orange) and Tip # 809 Commercial Open Round Tip 809 pipe the carrot: squeeze with consistent pressure while slowly moving up. If you vary the pressure and push down slightly and then up again while squeezing you will create little ridges in the carrot to add a more realistic texture. When the carrot is at the desired height stop squeezing, push slightly into the icing and move the piping bag away at an angle. If the icing peaks dip your finger in a bit of cornstarch to prevent sticking and dab the icing down.

Step 4: Finish with Fondant Carrot Top

Add the final touch with your pre-made carrot tops and enjoy a fun festive Easter treat with family and friends!

Jayden Sepe, owner of Scoop-n-Save, professional cake artist and sprinkle aficionado enjoys helping people develop their cake decorating super powers. Jayden studied culinary arts with a specialty in baking and pastry at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts and went on to open Forbbiden Sweets where she wowed supplying creative cakes, cupcakes and cookies. Since taking over at the Scoop, Jayden has indulged her shopping addiction to bring new and trending decorating products into the store.

Watch the video to learn how to pipe a rosette and add simple fondant leaves to make a cute Valentines rose cupcake. Arrange the cupcakes on a silver cake board and add a some rolled fondant stems and a fondant bow and voila! you have a simple rose cupcake bouquet to share with your Valentines. 

In our videos we demonstrate the piping technique on styrofoam "cupcakes".  Jayden uses a simple swirl technique that starts in the center and circles around till the cupcake is covered. 

Piped with  Tip # 1M and using the easy fondant leaf cutter

Jayden Sepe, owner of Scoop-n-Save, professional cake artist and sprinkle aficionado enjoys helping people develop their cake decorating super powers. Jayden studied culinary arts with a specialty in baking and pastry at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts and went on to open Forbbiden Sweets where she wowed supplying creative cakes, cupcakes and cookies. Since taking over at the Scoop, Jayden has indulged her shopping addiction to bring new and trending decorating products into the store.

Cake Decorating Supplies 

• 5lbs Fat Daddio White Fondant
• Rib & Cable Knit Silicone Mold
• Classic Knit Silicone Mold
• Trinity Knit Silicone Mold
• Mitten Cookie Cutter
• Chocolate Wafers (to stick mittens to stick)
• Wooden Dowel (to attach mittens to top of cake)

On this cake the top tier is the Trinity pattern, the 2 and bottom tiers are the Rib and Cable knit pattern and the 3rd is the Classic knit pattern.

Jayden Sepe, owner of Scoop-n-Save, professional cake artist and sprinkle aficionado enjoys helping people develop their cake decorating super powers. Jayden studied culinary arts with a specialty in baking and pastry at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts and went on to open Forbbiden Sweets where she wowed supplying creative cakes, cupcakes and cookies. Since taking over at the Scoop, Jayden has indulged her shopping addiction to bring new and trending decorating products into the store.